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2020 Visions: Broken Hearts & Civil Disobedience.

April 17, 2020 by Faith Phillips

Thursday, April 16

Virtual Reality Day in BritLit. We stood on the edge of a skyscraper and looked down.

“One morning I was shaving in a restroom when an old man came in, and observing me, asked me if I was ‘sleeping out’. I told him yes, and it turned out that he had this old trailer that I could stay in for free. The only problem is that he doesn’t really own it. Some absentee owners are merely letting him live on their land here, in another little trailer he stays in. So I kind of have to keep things toned down and stay out of sight, because he isn’t supposed to have anybody over here. It’s really quite a good deal, though, for the inside of the trailer is nice, it’s a house trailer, furnished, with some of the electric sockets working and a lot of living space. The only drawback is this old guy, whose name is Charlie, is something of a lunatic and it’s rather difficult to get along with him sometimes.”

Into the Wild, Chapter 5

By the time I was eighteen years old I had already fallen in love and had my heart broken. That would happen again several times afterward. Eventually, I would forgive and become friends with *almost* every single person who broke my heart. 

Journal: Tell me about a time when your heart was broken. It doesn’t have to be romantic love, it could be any relationship that hurt you. Do you feel a desire to see that relationship restored? Can you imagine forgiving that hurt? How does that look in your mind? 

Friday, April 17

It was formerly the custom in our village, when a poor debtor came out of jail, for his acquaintances to salute him, looking through their fingers, which were crossed to represent the grating of a jail window, “How do ye do?” My neighbors did not thus salute me, but first looked at me, and then at one another, as if I had returned from a long journey. I was put into jail as I was going to the shoemaker’s to get a shoe which was mended. When I was let out the next morning, I proceeded to finish my errand, and, having put on my mended shoe, joined a huckleberry party, who were impatient to put themselves under my conduct; and in half an hour, –for the horse was soon tackled—was in the midst of a huckleberry field, on one of our highest hills, two miles off; and then the State was nowhere to be seen.

This is the whole history of “My Prisons.”

~Civil Disobedience, Thoreau

Journal: Henry David Thoreau is one of many philosophers who spent some time in jail. He was put in prison for failure to pay taxes. Imagine yourself behind bars for several weeks, like Thoreau. Write a letter to your friends and family. 

Song of the Day: My Hometown, by Charlie Robinson. Song selection by B.H.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wg1pYtoWL6c

Filed Under: Uncategorized

2020 Visions: Friendship, Cognitive Dissonance & Beauty

April 15, 2020 by Faith Phillips

Monday, April 13

Stilwell High School Seniors delivering Thanksgiving baskets

“I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new. Shall I not call God the Beautiful, who daily showeth himself so to me in his gifts? I chide society, I embrace solitude, and yet I am not so ungrateful as not to see the wise, the lovely and the noble-minded, as from time to time they pass my gate. Who hears me, who understands me, becomes mine, — a possession for all time. Nor is nature so poor but she gives me this joy several times, and thus we weave social threads of our own, a new web of relations; and, as many thoughts in succession substantiate themselves, we shall by and by stand in a new world of our own creation, and no longer strangers and pilgrims in a traditionary globe.” ~Emerson, “Friendship”

Although I find myself worrying on occasion during this time of uncertainty, it seems to happen most when I’m sitting in front of the television watching the news over and over. I’ve found that in order to be healthy and positive, I must limit my exposure to the news. The times when I feel the best and healthiest are those times when I’m helping someone. Even if it is as simple as making someone a sandwich. 

Journal: What are some of the ways you’ve been staying positive and healthy? Tell me about some of the activities you have done in the past few weeks that make you feel worse. 

Have you turned to your friends? What are you doing now to make yourself feel better? Are you helping your friends?

Song of the day: Rhiannon by Fleetwood Mac (song suggestion made by H.D.)

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_aYibUx1B8

Tuesday, April 14

“On February 24, seven and a half months after he abandoned that Datsun, McCandless returned to the Detrital Wash. The Park Service had long since impounded the vehicle, but he unearthed his old Virginia plates, SJF-421, and a few belongings he’d buried there. Then he hitched into Las Vegas and found a job in an Italian restaurant. ‘Alexander buried his backpack in the desert on 2/27 and entered Las Vegas with no money and no ID,’ the journal tells us. 

He lived on the streets with bums, tramps, and winos for several weeks. Vegas would not be the end of his story, however. On May 10, itchy feet returned and Alex left his job in Vegas, retrieved his backpack, and hit the road again, though he found that if you are stupid enough to bury a camera underground you won’t be taking many pictures with it afterwards. Thus the story has no picture book for the period May 10, 1991 – January 7, 1992. But this is not important. It is the experiences, the memories, the great triumphant joy of living to the fullest extent in which the real meaning is found. God it’s great to be alive! Thank you. Thank you.”

Into the Wild, Chapter 4

The phrase “cognitive dissonance” means a mental conflict that occurs when you hear new information. Our brains are wired in such a way that we typically feel discomfort with new information. We, as human beings, do not like to learn that we are wrong and our first reaction to change is often fear and anger.

Journal: Tell me the story of a time when you realized you were wrong about something. What was your reaction? Did you change your course of action or did you decide to stick with your original belief? Why?

Wednesday, April 15

“It is foolish to be afraid of making our ties too spiritual, as if so we could lose any genuine love. Whatever correction of our popular views we make from insight, nature will be sure to bear us out in, and though it seem to rob us of some joy, will repay us with a greater. Let us feel if we will the absolute insulation of man. We are sure that we have all in us. We go to Europe, or we pursue persons, or we read books, in the instinctive faith that these will call it out and reveal us to ourselves. Beggars all. The persons are such as we; the Europe, an old faded garment of dead persons; the books, their ghosts. Let us drop this idolatry. Let us give over this mendicancy. Let us even bid our dearest friends farewell, and defy them, saying, ‘Who are you? Unhand me; I will be dependent no more.’ Ah! Seest thou not, O brother, that thus we part only to meet again on a higher platform, and only be more each other’s because we are more our own? A friend is Janus-faced: he looks to the past and the future. He is the child of all my foregoing hours, the prophet of those to come, and the harbinger of a greater friend. It is the property of the divine to be reproductive.” ~Emerson, Friendship

Beauty is something to which we are naturally drawn as human beings. Sometimes we find beauty in a human face. Sometimes it is evident in nature. Beauty is made available to us in great art and literature. Personally, I seek out beauty in nature. One of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen was a sunrise at the top of a volcano in Hawaii. It was so beautiful that it actually made me cry. It is also said that beauty exists in the eye of the beholder, meaning different people find different things beautiful. Maybe a volcano is something ugly to you. But no doubt you have experienced beauty in some way.

Journal: Describe the most beautiful sight you’ve ever seen. Paint a picture for me with your words. Did you find beauty in a person, a place, a piece of art? What was it about that thing that made it so beautiful to you?

Filed Under: Uncategorized

2020 Visions: Fight, Flight, or Freeze and A Secret Place.

April 10, 2020 by Faith Phillips

Senior gentlemen celebrating with Grandma Donnie’s sugar cookies.

Thursday, April 9

“These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world. Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance

A phrase called “fight or flight” is often used to describe human physiological reaction to fear. But that phrase almost always leaves out a third option: freeze. Deer do that when your headlights shine in their eyes. Their first reaction is to freeze. 

The fight-or-flight response, also known as the acute stress response, refers to a physiological reaction that occurs in the presence of something that is terrifying, either mentally or physically. The response is triggered by the release of hormones that prepare your body to either stay and deal with a threat or to run away to safety.

The term ‘fight-or-flight’ represents the choices that our ancient ancestors had when faced with danger in their environment. They could either fight or flee. In either case, the physiological and psychological response to stress prepares the body to react to the danger. (Sourced from Levi Keehler, Consulting and Counseling for Community Change, PLLC and The Very Well Mind)


Journal: Write an essay on how you naturally respond when you feel fear. Do you fight, run away, or freeze? What do you wish you would do in response to fear? Discuss something you fear and how you wish to respond.

Song of the Day: Life’s Been Good, Joe Walsh
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXWvKDSwvls

Friday, April 10

“You could tell right away that Alex was intelligent,” Westerberg reflects, draining his third drink. “He read a lot. Used a lot of big words. I think maybe part of what got him into trouble was that he did too much thinking. Sometimes he tried too hard to make sense of the world, to figure out why people were bad to each other so often. A couple of times I tried to tell him it was a mistake to get too deep into that kind of stuff, but Alex got stuck on things. He always had to know the absolute right answer before he could go on to the next thing.” ~Into the Wild, Chapter 3

When I was young there was a place off in a field where I would go by myself. There was a little stream out there and a big tree had fallen across the stream. I would go out there and climb up on that tree to daydream and watch the tadpoles flit around in the water under my feet. That was my secret place. If my parents got in a fight or I felt sad, even when I was happy, I loved to go there just to be silent and peaceful. 

Journal: Where do you go when you need to find some peace? Do you have a secret place? If so, describe for me what it looks like. If you don’t have a secret place, imagine a place that would be perfect for you. Describe your perfect secret place. What does it look like?

Song of the Day:

Something Big by Shawn Mendes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mytLRy32Viw

Filed Under: Uncategorized

2020 Visions: Earthly Exile, Heavenly Home

April 8, 2020 by Faith Phillips

Wednesday, April 8

The Senior Homecoming Float, October 2019

“S.O.S. I need your help. I am injured, near death, and too weak to hike out of here. I am all alone, this is NO JOKE. In the name of God, please remain to save me. I am out collecting berries close by and shall return this evening. Thank you, Chris McCandless. August?”

~Into the Wild, Chapter 2. This was a note McCandless left after hiking out into the Alaskan wilderness alone.

The title of the first section in our literature textbook was Earthly Exile, Heavenly Home. We studied several epic poems in the beginning of the year about being forced to exist away from home. Consider what it would be like to live away from home, to be sent away to a foreign land, unsure of whether you could ever return. 

Journal: What are the good things about your home? What do you like about it? How would you feel if you were sent away or forced to leave? How would you make it if you were forced to live in exile?

Song of the Day, Nothing Compares 2 U, Prince (from Abi Duran)

Yesterday we wrote about our expectations for the year and how reality differed from those expectations. Here is an excerpt one of you wrote. (re-printed with permission)

“My expectation for the year was to have fun for my last year and just relax a little, also to go to prom and have all my family at my graduation. Now I won’t have my senior prom or my family won’t watch me walk across the stage, especially my mom. Everything I do is for my mom. She’s the main reason I stayed in school and went to votech to further my career. The difference is a bad thing for me, I never thought that my last year would end like this. I never wanted to stay at home for months not doing anything, I would go to school just to see my friends. 

I aspire to become a nurse and take care of my mom like she does me still to this day. I won’t let this virus stop me from becoming what I always dreamed of. I will continue to go to votech after everything is over with. How I would advance on this chaos is to stay home wash my hands, take showers and do my school work so I won’t be that bored for the next couple of weeks.”

Great work. Thank you for continuing to share your journey even though “we be apart”.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2020visions, chromedreams, seniors2020

2020 Visions: Let Us Advance On the Chaos

April 7, 2020 by Faith Phillips

Tuesday, April 7

2020 Visions, Part II

“Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the eternal was stirring at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being. And we are now men, and must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not pinched in a corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but redeemers and benefactors, pious aspirants to be noble clay under the Almighty effort. Let us advance on Chaos and the Dark. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self Reliance

We had some very interesting moments at the beginning of the year. Someone said our classroom looked like the room of a witch. A senior asked to hear the story of how I recovered from a snake bite. A gentleman told me a hobbit joke. One of you said you didn’t want to read out loud in front of the class. The point is, as individuals and as a group, we went through a real metamorphosis during our time together. Some of our expectations came true, but for the most part, everything wonderful came from events we could not have foreseen.

Who could have guessed that our class would be on television and the radio? I never expected we would make a podcast for our research project until the week we started! Did you ever think we would be selected by NPR for national recognition?

Journal: We came together with very different expectations. What were your expectations for the year back in August 2019?  How does the current reality differ from your expectations? Do you think the difference is a good or a bad thing?

Finally, what do you aspire to become now? How will you make your plans a reality? How will you advance on the chaos? Be specific.

*Note: as we move forward through our journals I will feature a song every day from the playlists you sent yesterday. Thank you for your work and your honest. It was thoughtful, moving, and spectacular!
Song of the Day: Don’t Stop Me Now

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2020visions, chrome dreams, seniors 2020

2020 Visions, Part I

April 6, 2020 by Faith Phillips

#Seniors2020 in the paint.

We are all in this together and the time is now.

Monday, April 6

Greetings, Earthlings, I have come here to assert my world domination at long last. Oops, wrong thread. I meant to say, hello, Seniors 2020!

We made a time capsule when I was a Senior at Stilwell High School way back in 1996. It was one of the last things I did as a Stilwell Indian. Ten years later I went to my high school reunion and they handed out the items we had written (song lyrics, letters, etc.) I was shocked and delighted at 28 years old to see the things I’d written to myself as a teenager. Some people say teenagers are foolish but that is a falsehood. You’re already very wise and you know more than most. Also, no one in the world is more of an expert about you than YOU. So our final project as a class will be to read excerpts from our books and write 20 days worth of journal entries. 

If you ever have any questions or concerns about this project OR if you need anything at all you can contact me on my cell phone. I am also available throughout the day via school email: fphillips@stilwellk12.org.  

Please keep in mind this project is designed for only 15-20 minutes of daily work. This is not, I repeat, THIS IS NOT, a project to stress over, OK? I told you at the beginning of the year if you showed up, if you stuck with me and made an effort you had nothing to worry about. That has not changed. Do not stress over this work. As a matter of fact, journaling is a proven stress reliever. Use this project as your daily opportunity to de-stress. 

Every day we will have a different reading selection followed by a journal entry. If you finish this assignment all at once you’re done for the year and there will be no consequence for turning the work in early. But I ask you to be more reflective than that. Consider the project as though your writing may one day be published in a book. Many of you expressed during the school year that you would love for our class to publish a book. That is what I’m hoping for from you; thoughtful writing that captures YOU as a unique individual and personal reflections on the time we spent together. This strange year will remain a special time in my life. I will never forget you. I will do my very best to publish our year in a book. This project is due back by May 4th. Either send it back to me by email or take snapshots and text or message it to me. As a last resort, you can take the paper packet back to the office. I greatly prefer to limit our potential exposure to each other by doing the work electronically. 

When all this is over we will celebrate the real way. IN PERSON. For now, let us finish what we started. Are you ready? Take a deep breath. Here we go.  

We would have ended this year by reading Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer and Transcendentalism by Emerson and Thoreau, featuring the essays Self-Reliance & Civil Disobedience. Both of these books emphasize independence and finding freedom in nature, among other things. They also feature journal entries. I’ll include excerpts from these two books in each assignment. This is an excerpt from Into the Wild, Chapter 1:

“April 27th 1992
Greetings from Fairbanks! This is the last you shall hear from me Wayne, arrived here 2 days ago. It was very difficult to catch rides in the Yukon Territory. But I finally got here. Please return all the mail I receive to the sender. It might be a very long time before I return South. If this adventure proves fatal and you don’t ever hear from me again I want you to know you’re a great man. I now walk into the wild. Alex.”
-Postcard received by Wayne Westerberg in Carthage, South Dakota.

Assignment
We took many surveys together over the year. These were designed so I could get to know you better as a human being, not just as a student in a class. Music was an important component of our communication with each other. That’s why the first survey asked what songs you wanted to listen to while we worked. Music is therapeutic.

I can’t name all the songs you gave me here but these are just a few I distinctly remember:

Stolen Dance, Milky Chance
Graduation, Juice Wrld
Try Me, James Brown
Beautiful Crazy, Luke Combs
Crazy, Gnarls Barkley
ChaCha Slide 🙁
Zephyr Song, Red Hot Chili Peppers
You Really Got A Hold On Me, Smokey Robinson
Whiskey Lullaby, Paisley & Krauss
Tuesday’s Gone, Lynyrd Skynyrd

Now that I know you I want to take the question a step further. What songs are you listening to right now? Consider the circumstances we find ourselves in. Do you listen to a particular song to help you through this strange and challenging time?

Journal: Make a playlist of at least 5 songs to tell your story of the past year. Choose one in particular that speaks to you. Write out a few lyrics and explain how they help you continue to move forward.

Here is my song:

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2020visions, chrome dreams, seniors 2020

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